Police vs protesters

The Sindh Rawadari March held on October 13, 2024, was a landmark event, highlighting the refusal of the people of Sindh to accept any intolerant agenda that certain quarters have been trying to impose on the province much in the same manner as has happened in the rest of the country.

The manner in which the police cracked down on activists, civil society members, human-rights defenders, intellectuals, and journalists unfortunately demonstrated an inherent apathy – or rather antipathy – in our security personnel towards human rights and all those who stand to defend these rights.

Jami Chandio and his daughter Romasa, HRCP Sindh vice-chair Khizar Qazi, Sindhu Nawaz Ghangro, Alia Bakhshal, Nasir Mansoor, Saif Samejo, Riaz Ali Chandio, Niaz Kalani, Punhal Sario, and many others were on the receiving end of police atrocities. The same police force across Pakistan displays unusual alacrity in acting on complaints of blasphemy that in many cases have proven to be untrue or simply ill-intentioned.

The Sindh Rawadari March Action Committee issued an ultimatum to the PPP demanding that MNA Ameer Ali Shah be unseated from his seat in the National Assembly. Shah had garlanded the policemen involved in the custodial death of Dr Shahnwaz Kunbhar in Umerkot. It is imperative to keep pressure on the PPP and the Sindh government to take stern action against those involved in the sordid episode of this extrajudicial killing and the subsequent crackdown on the Rawadari march. There is hardly any doubt that the Sindh government has been wittingly or unwittingly using double standards.

This duality of the PPP shows that it attempts to strike a balance between intolerant forces and those who promote tolerance (rawadari) in society. Though the Sindh government has sought an apology for police action against peaceful protesters, the measures the police took to forestall the march and the punitive actions it initiated against the participants could not take place without an explicit approval form the Sindh government. The intimidation that has continued even after the march from various quarters should be a cause of concern for all who are struggling for justice in society.

Sindh – and nearly all other provinces in Pakistan – have been pretty tolerant for centuries. This was the land where Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Parsis (Zoroastrians) and Sikhs lived side by side – of course with minor frictions – but there were hardly any lynching and targeted killings of those who did not conform to any particular creed. Sindh has been even more tolerant compared to other areas in Pakistan but lately we have witnessed unprecedented incidents of blasphemy accusations, custodial killings, extrajudicial murders, fake encounters, and police crackdowns. Dr Shahnawaz’s death has stirred a collective voice that the authorities cannot ignore.

The government of Sindh has taken the right step by initiating a judicial inquiry rather than a police investigation into the matter. The initial post-mortem report of Dr Shahnawaz was incomplete, misleading, and hid some major injuries inflicted on him before he lost his life. All over Pakistan, post-mortem reports have become an issue of manipulation and insufficient details especially if the report is the product of a government hospital. False reports are not uncommon and there is always a chance of some cover-up that ultimately aims to protect the perpetrators.

Judicial probes are relatively more reliable but even they are not beyond unscrupulous means as we have seen from the highest to the lowest courts. Be it police crackdown, investigations, judicial probes, or post-mortem reports, there has to be a system of consistent accountability for those who mislead the public or overstep their authority and mandate. There is seldom any action against those who incite to killing and violence. The extremist lobby gets together and intimidates the concerned authorities who are in most cases too weak to withstand the pressure. Even the highest judiciary is prone to surrender under pressure.

Then there is also a question of how elected representatives behave in response to such incidents. In many cases, public representatives have facilitated extremist elements in society and even stood by the police officials who were involved in custodial killings. The PTI’s covert and at times overt support to the Taliban is a case in point.

When the police arrested dozens of people from the Rawadari march outside the Karachi Press Club, it was a blatant attempt to cow down the few tolerant voices in society.

The rise of religious extremism across Sindh needs an immediate and proportionate response that should come not only from civil society but also from the police and politicians. Alleged blasphemy cases are increasing by the day and there appears to be no end in sight. An officer kills the accused without any due process of justice; the crowd manages to snatch the body before burial and sets it on fire – and then certain elements in society celebrate these actions. This depicts an alarming degeneration of society which is becoming devoid of any sense of accountability and concern for justice.

The Sindh Human Rights Commission prepared a much better fact-finding report that found glaring violations in the legal process. When state functionaries deny fundamental rights to an accused and the police also indulge in serious misconduct, the higher authorities cannot simply ignore such gross negligence. Academics, civil society activists, and intellectuals of Sindh have decried the police crackdown and have vowed not to back down in the face of religious extremism. The way Sindh has responded to recent incidents should serve as an example for academics and civil society in other provinces too.

Despite similar incidents in other provinces, we have rarely seen such overwhelming reaction from human rights defenders. The constitution of Pakistan in articles 16, 17, and 18 gives the public the right to protest and no federal or provincial government should ever try to trample these rights. Imposition of Section 144 before the Rawadari march was an ill-considered decision. Lately we have seen that whenever human rights defenders try to hold a march or a protest immediately another group – mostly from the right wing – announces a similar protest or rally at the same venue.

In such circumstances, the authorities find it convenient to impose a ban by using Section 144 which prohibits more than four persons to gather at any location. This encourages the intolerant lot to be even more vocal in front of the human rights defenders who are already in short supply in this country. The best way out for the authorities is to decide once and for all about how long they are going to tolerate the intolerant forces in society and continue their crackdown on those who try to defend human rights in the country.

The PPP has been in power for over 16 years in Sindh and it has a better record in its fight for democracy in the country than perhaps any other major political party. But certain incidents and occasional religious rhetoric of its leaders harms its own image that it must protect all costs. The top leadership of the PPP and the Sindh administration must devise a plan to counter the increasing extremism in the province before it is too late.

The writer holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK. He tweets/posts

@NaazirMahmood and can be reached at: mnazir1964@yahoo.co.uk